Duchess of Cambridge receives support from Countess of Wessex in topless pictures row

Kate can turn to the Countess of Wessex, who endured the publication of a
topless photograph
being published days before her wedding.

Both the Duchess of Cambridge and the Countess of Wessex have faced the publication of intrusive paparazzi photographsPhoto: REX FEATURES

By Richard Eden

7:26AM BST 16 Sep 2012

As the Duchess of Cambridge faces the publication of more intrusive paparazzi photographs, she can to turn to another member of the Royal family for support. Sophie Rhys-Jones was devastated when The Sun ran a topless picture of her just days before she married Prince Edward in 1999.

“Sophie will be a shoulder for Kate to lean on,” says Murray Harkin, who ran a public relations firm with her at the time. “I expect that she will have been in touch with Kate already.

“I remember Sophie ringing me in the early hours of the morning, in floods of tears, when she discovered that The Sun had bought the picture and was planning to publish it. She was so upset because she felt that she was 'letting the side down’ before her wedding.”

Harkin warns the editor of the French magazine Closer, who published the pictures of the Duchess, that she will never live it down. “In Sophie’s case, it was even worse because it involved a betrayal,” he says. “Kara Noble, who knew Sophie, sold the topless picture and had to move abroad because she was so pilloried afterwards.”

Samantha Murray won a silver medal at the London Olympics but has struck gold in her private life.

The 22-year-old Lancastrian is enjoying a passionate romance with the dashing Italian Riccardo de Luca, 26, a fellow modern pentathlete.

“I’m learning Italian,” she tells Mandrake at the Rib Room at Jumeirah Carlton Tower hotel in Knightsbridge. “Riccardo and I can communicate easily because he speaks English, but I want to be able to talk to him in his first language.”

She adds: “He’s so great. This summer has been such a dream in so many ways.”

Teenage terror

Thandie Newton has prepared for many parts in her career, but her real-life role as the mother of two blossoming daughters is proving a taxing one. The Hollywood star’s husband, Ol Parker, says: “I have two girls and one is now nearly a teenager – it is terrifying.”

Speaking at the premiere of his latest film, Now Is Good, the director adds: “There is a scene that I wrote with the line, 'It’s a terrible day when a man’s daughter brings a boy home for the first time.’ I’ll never be ready for it, I would like to stop my children growing, I don’t know how to handle it.”